Before the Mirror

Plus 359 Gallery / 23.04.2026 – 27.05.2026

Pravdoliub Ivanov, Mariela Gemisheva, Sophia Grancharova, Невелин Иванов, Bilyana Tokmakchieva, Filip Boyadjiev, Ina Dobreva, Yves-Christian Angelov, Stodara, Vicktor Antonov, Kyril Buhowski Curator: Gergana Minkova Concept: Stodara “Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so we can get through.” – Lewis Carroll, “Alice Through the Looking-Glass”, ch. 1 In the contemporary world of screens, displays, and monitors, constant self-observation is inevitable. Reflection pursues the modern individual across every surface, and the mirror departs from the realm of the intimate. It is no longer an instrument of self-knowledge, but a machine for producing images – and, consequently, subjects. Having lost its introverted essence, it becomes a cultural tool that shapes, rearranges, and determines, introducing a kind of “curation” of identity. Here, the mirror is not a means of self-reflection, but of identification in a Lacanian sense: the subject recognises itself in an image that both gives it form and alienates it from itself. Identity is thus conceived as a reflection – of one’s own and others’ expectations of personal “authenticity”, or the illusion thereof. The self is not a fixed given but is constructed and transformed according to circumstance. With every shift in context, the very sense of essence changes. In this sense, the exhibition rethinks identity as an open and dynamic process that eludes any final definition or completion. The self is approached as a constructed territory of intimate negotiations—between the social, the aesthetic, and the religious; between conscious choice and subconscious resistance; between the copying of models in the formation of identity and its disintegration under the pressure of continuous “reflection”. Before the Mirror reflects all those versions of the self constructed in the effort to “be oneself”, along with the inner conflicts that accompany the search for authenticity. In today’s world of reflections, in which we constantly model a social “avatar”, the subject exists as a series of its own versions. We find ourselves in a constant reconfiguration of who we are, depending on context, language, social platform, or personal inner dialogue. Before the Mirror invites visitors to stand before their inner mirror and to ask themselves a simple yet deeply personal question: “Who am I when no one is watching?” Before the Mirror is a project of the Ilvida Foundation, realised with the support of Lozenets District and with financial support from the Sofia Municipality – Culture Programme, the Singer-Zahariev Foundation, and the National Culture Fund.